My hometown of Plano, IL has experienced a lot in the last 20 years. It’s doubled in size as the county in which it sits, Kendall County, became one of the fastest-growing in the country in the 2000s. The football team won back-to-back state titles in 2006 and 2007.
Perhaps the coolest development occurred in the summer of 2011, when Plano doubled as Smallville, Kansas, the fictional hometown of Superman, for the movie Man of Steel.
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I’ve been spending the past few weeks up to my eyes in mulch and dirt whipping the yard into shape, and I found a surprisingly helpful tool.
I don’t remember even buying these, but with them I was able to trench borders that actually could be mistaken for circles and straight lines.
And no, you cannot get the last 45 seconds of your life back. No refunds, exchanges, or store credit.
He’s going for speed
When is a humblebrag more humble than brag? When there’s video proof!
After a week of grey skies and soggy ground, the sun is out. My office has an informal, lunch-hour 40-yard dash competition each year, and I was around for it this year. I didn’t fare too badly–5.81 and 5.83 in my two tries–and I was feeling pretty good considering I’m that 37, a good 10 pounds heavier than I should be, and wearing jeans.
Then I saw the video posted by my co-worker. To the tape!
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Coal Creek
I shared some photos of near-flooding on the Rock River in Moline on Tuesday. At the time, flood levels were supposed to come close to official flood level, but then subsided.
So much for that.
After two days of heavy, heavy rain, river levels have risen dramatically. Many area hydrographs show similar data to the ones below, rising from well under flood stage to what is classified as “major” flood levels.
Sure, technically the Rock River isn’t above flood stage right now at its measuring station in Moline, Illinois, but it’s been close enough for long enough this spring.
Fun fact: six of this location’s ten highest recorded floods have occurred in the past 20 years, and the top 12 floods at this location all have happened since 1970 (also, fourteen of the top twenty, by my rough count).
I stopped by Harold’s Landing on my lunch hour and took a few pictures.
